HAVANA - Monsignor Fernando Prego Casal, bishop of the diocese of Sancti
Spiritus, Villa Clara province, died January 9 in the Cardio Centro hospital
following a serious illness. His funeral was the following day.

A mass as part of the funeral was celebrated in the Cathedral of Santa
Clara de Asis. Among those attending the mass were Nuncio Benianino Stella,
Cardenal Jaime Ortega Alamino, all the bishops of Cuba and Caridad Diego,
chief of religious affairs of the Communist Party.

The coffin was carried over shoulders throughout the city under a
rain. Thousands of people joined the funeral procession to the
cemetery. The speaker was José Ciro González, Bishop of Pinar del Río, who was
a classmate of Bishop Prego Casal in the seminary they once attended.

Prego Casal was born in Havana on Nov. 7, 1927, and was ordained
priest on April 17, 1955. He was a parson in Alquízar and Ceiba del Agua and
ordained Bishop on January 14, 1971.